Hey Rich Guys!

If the stock market is doing so well then why isn’t wages rising too? For the average American the gains don’t really matter unless we see some of that wealth trickling down to our paychecks too.  We do have good economic news with the Department of Labor saying that 228,000 jobs were added and the unemployment rate has remained the same at 4.1%. The number that we want to hear the most to increase is wage earnings and that hasn’t budged any higher. Why not?

Paychecks are not growing as they should. The percentage change in average hourly earnings have actually declined since 2008. Americans can hardly keep up with the rate of inflation. So, corporations are making more money, paychecks have not increased and the prices to buy everything has gone up. How does that help Americans? The unemployment rate is extremely low now and hasn’t been this low since the year 2000. With that many people working corporations should be competing with each other to get someone to work for them. Another reason to lure workers with better wages but it just isn’t happening.

At the turn of the century the unemployment rate dropped below 4% and wages went up fast. Not now. This new unemployment rate can’t be accurate because it doesn’t even include the amount of people who aren’t even looking for jobs now. A reason for the drop in wages could be that older workers are being replaced by younger workers who start jobs at lower wages. That is sad if they are doing the same job no matter how old you are.

Austan Goolsbee a Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago notes that corporate profits have gone up by a huge increase. There aren’t many unions left to speak and fight for the average worker anymore. Trump favors his rich corporate buddies and is pushing for a tax plan that clearly puts more money in the pockets of the very rich. Trump is cutting corporate taxes. He thinks that by giving the corporations a tax break they in return will spend those profits on their employees. There isn’t any law that is going to make them share the profits so they probably won’t share anything with anyone.

Stupid Trump. Then why didn’t any of that happen over the past 25 years? Corporate profits are now at an all-time high.  Trump’s approval rating is already at a historical low for Presidents in their first year at 30% for him. How about Trump sign something to force corporations to give wage hikes in proportion to corporate profits? Trump has not done anything sensible for this country yet. Americans ARE spoiled and invest with their emotions and not with common sense. If we get some money instead of putting it in the bank for our future we will probably spend the money on even a larger TV or something for instant gratification.

We all say that we want to save for retirement but most likely we don’t. There just isn’t enough extra cash at the end of the day to even think of what to do with it wisely. We will just spend it on extra toppings on our pizza. If we are asked to contribute to the companies 401K plan, we usually never get around to doing it but if the greedy corporations would just ADD money to our paychecks and automatically invest it for us, maybe we would be a happier country?

Do something good for us top percent of rich guys. Stop being Scrooge. It’s Christmas time!